


Glass

by starcunning



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Post-MSQ, Shadowbringers Spoilers, Shasiverse, heart-to-hearts between people not given to heart-to-hearts, swimming lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 11:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19945507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcunning/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: “Forgive me if I overstep myself,” Urianger said, “but thou hast placed thy trust in me again and again over the years, and I prithee do so now.”“What is it?” she asked, lifting her hands to sweep them back over her hair, which had been plastered to her forehead and now hung damp over the curve of her scalp.“Whilst I prepared the auracite for thine usage, I had cause and time both to reflect upon the course of my life,” he said.  “My sin has been action oft enough, ’tis true, but my greatest regret is born instead of inaction. I would see thee benefit from mine own experience and succumb not to the same pitfall.”





	Glass

Light filtered through the dome overhead to glitter upon the water, gentler now than it had been in a century. It was cooler in the Pendants than Shasi might have imagined, altitude and the flow of cool water wicking away much of the heat that the glass overhead trapped. She paused at the edge of the pool to slip her sandals off, swiping her toes through the water and glancing back.

“It feels alright,” she said. “The Brimming Heart is warmer, but we’ll make do.”  
“The Brimming Heart remaineth beyond my reach, alas,” Urianger muttered.

As strange as it had been to see him bare-armed in an astrologian’s garb, it was odder still to see yet more of him, his chest and calves bare. She had assumed he was simply modest, perhaps even shy, but the scholar seemed hale, his skin untouched by scars.

“You know, if you ever get invited to the beach, you can always just sit on a towel and read,” she said, grinning to herself as she turned away. “I think you’d do just fine, so long as you don’t mind being interrupted. Here, come stand on the edge with me. Take your sandals off.”  
“Would that it were so simple a matter as that,” Urianger sighed. “Knowest thou the most recent time any of our party had a moment’s leisure?”  
Shasi hummed thoughtfully, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as Urianger drew abreast of her. A half-dozen answers sprung to mind, most of them born of her absence for one reason or another. “Four years ago by your reckoning,” she said, “though somewhat shorter by mine, as we awaited the arrival of the Doman cohort to Ala Mhigo for talks. I could have taught you then, you know; the salt water of the Lochs makes a man buoyant as anything.” She lifted a hand to rake it through her hair. “Here, sit down.”  
Urianger did, folding his long limbs up underneath him. “Here I thought thee indisposed for much of that time, or dost thou deny that thou had taken up with Master Thancred?”  
She reached over to tap his knee. “Get your feet in the water,” she instructed. “There’s a bit of a current because I think this pool is spring-fed, and I want you to get used to it slowly.” She plunged her own feet into the water without hesitation, plucking at the drape of her pareo. “Thancred and I were spending time together, yes,” she said, “but not every waking moment. I still collected on a few hunt bills and saw to some other obligations …”  
Urianger shivered, his calf brushing hers as the current tugged at his limbs. He went rigid a moment later, jerking his foot away and gripping the pool’s edge. “And have the pair of you rekindled that relationship?” he asked.  
“Urianger,” she groaned, but gave no further answer.

The light on the water turned sunset-orange, the lattices of steel casting their shadows on the far wall. Shasi watched them lengthen and creep upward, looking anywhere but at her friend.

“No,” she said at last, drawing her knees up and getting her feet under her to stand. “Stay here. Don’t get in without me; I’ve just … forgotten something.” As well she had, she supposed, though as she turned to go, feeling the droplets of water roll over her calves, Urianger spoke again.  
“For what then did I give thee counsel?” he wondered.  
“For the future,” Shasi said, returning to where she had laid her belongings over a wooden chaise. Her pareo joined them a moment later, and she adjusted the waistband of her tanga. Among her things, she found the rubber bladder she had brought and stretched it between her hands, letting the material warm a bit. “The same reason I’m teaching you to swim now, so that when the moment comes you’ll know what to do.”  
“These things are hardly the same,” Urianger said.  
“You live in a _harbor,_ Urianger,” she said. “It’s past time you learned to swim.”

She found the valve and fit her lips to it, taking a deep breath through her nose and began to inflate the ball. The rubber had been printed with a swirling pattern, which distended and paled as it grew. Urianger’s hands held fast to the edge of the pool, as though afraid the gentle flow of water might become a sudden deluge, and his grip was all that kept him from being swept away.

“It seemest that my skill in swimming—or more aptly my lack—is far more likely to come into contention at a moment not of my choosing,” Urianger said. “Whereas ’tis given to thee to choose thine own opportunities.”  
“Right,” Shasi said between breaths. “So … ’twere better done quickly … don’t you think?” She smiled at him, plugging the valve first with her thumb and then with a stopper of cork, forcing it down into the pliant rubber so that the ball was a perfect, uninterrupted round. She held it against one hip as she sat again, and then set it on the tiled floor beside the pool, stilling it with one hand. Then she gripped the edge of the pool and pushed herself in, sliding forward smoothly. Her feet touched the bottom easily enough, though the water reached mid-chest, lapping at her shoulders. She felt her hair prick up for a moment, surprised at the sudden enveloping feeling of coolness, but shook it off and turned back to look at Urianger. “Come on in,” she said.  
He looked at her, his dubious squint shifting the sage’s tattoo upon his cheek.  
“You can try to do it slowly,” she said. “Just hold onto the edge and lift yourself up, pushing forward so your legs are out in front of you. You’ll be able to stand, and I’m here to catch you.”  
“I should object to being so patronized,” he said, though there was a note of humor in his voice, “being not a child.”  
“No,” she agreed, “the child in our group is a stronger swimmer than you. Do you think Thancred taught her?” Shasi mused.

Urianger sloshed into the water a moment later, his knees buckling so that he sank chest deep into the water, though he stood quickly with a yelp.  
“You’re fine,” Shasi said. “It’s not that deep.”  
He blinked and seemed to recover a moment later, though he folded his arms across his chest as though he were cold. “As you say.”  
“I’m not going to ask you to do any swimming today, I just want you to get used to the water,” she said, not so much walking through the water as bouncing herself off the balls of her feet until she reached the side again, reaching up for the waiting ball. She turned around and tossed it lightly at Urianger, who stood upstream of her. By reflex he caught it, and tossed it back.

She liked the feeling of the water around her—the lightness it engendered. It felt much the same as red magic, in a strange way—the feeling of physical resistance to her movements contrasted with the weightlessness that let her spring upward, pushing off the bottom to stretch her arms up and catch the ball, landing with a splash. He missed her return volley, and the ball landed with a soft plop atop the water, the gentle current pushing it back toward Shasi, who cut across the pool to intercept.

Urianger moved stiffly at first, seeming to fight for balance in the water, unused to the dragging sensation. Eventually he seemed to warm to it, leading with his side to reduce resistance, and using what buoyancy was afforded him to take springing steps.

Soon—perhaps too soon, though perhaps it always would be—he was comfortable enough to speak as they batted the ball back and forth.  
“When wilt thou know?” he asked, water sloshing about him as he leapt upward, tossing the ball into the air.  
Shasi lunged after it, half-submerging her face in the water as she outstretched her arms. “Know what?”  
“That thy perfect opportunity is at hand?”  
Shasi tossed the ball upward lightly and slapped it with an open palm. “I’ll know,” she said.  
The ball caught Urianger squarely in the chest, and he simply wrapped his arms around it. He spun it in one hand, regarding its movements like an orrery, and then he looked at her. “Thou wert nearly lost to us,” Urianger said, “and all my plans for naught.” He tossed the ball lightly, but it fell into the water well short of her.  
She let it drift, setting a hand on it and staring down at it rather than look upon his face as she spoke. “They weren’t _your_ plans,” she said, an ear flicking.  
“I adopted them readily enough as mine own,” he said, “and bear the blame for both their execution and their failure.”  
She closed her eyes a moment, lifting the ball overhead. It dripped water on her face, but she simply shook her head, bent her arms, and threw with all her might. “You do _not,_ ” she insisted.  
There was an urgent rush of water, and when Shasi opened her eyes she saw Urianger half-folded about the ball, cradling it against his chest as though it were precious. “I will grant thee this concession, it being immaterial to my point,” he said. “Perhaps ’tis less urgent to apportion blame when I sought only to remind thee of thy mortality.”  
Shasi laughed, dry and brittle, remembering at last that he did not, could not _know_ what had happened at Ghimlyt. None of them could know; she had returned Alisaie to the infirmary herself before facing Elidibus. Before she had _died,_ by all accounts, only to awaken in a hospital herself. But laughter died a moment later upon her lips when she stopped to wonder what would have happened had the Wardens’ light broken free in truth. Could Hydaelyn have withdrawn her blessing? Or would the First have been benighted by an immortal being, more terrible in its radiance than all the foes she had slain before?

“Shasi,” Urianger said, and she started.  
Shaking herself from her thoughts, she saw the concern in his face and then his empty arms. She turned her head to look over her shoulder, and found the ball had drifted some ways into deeper water. “I’ll get it,” she said.

Before Urianger had a moment to react, Shasi turned around, diving forward and swimming down to the far end of the pool. If he said anything it was lost in the rush of water and the sound of her kicking. It was a brief sojourn out, and only somewhat longer on the way back with only one arm to aid her, but soon she stood beside him, holding the ball atop the water in front of her. “I think that’s enough for today,” she said. She tossed the ball up onto the tiles and hauled herself up to sit on the edge, offering Urianger a hand up after her.

“Forgive me if I overstep myself,” Urianger said, “but thou hast placed thy trust in me again and again over the years, and I prithee do so now.”  
“What is it?” she asked, lifting her hands to sweep them back over her hair, which had been plastered to her forehead and now hung damp over the curve of her scalp.  
“Whilst I prepared the auracite for thine usage, I had cause and time both to reflect upon the course of my life,” he said. “My sin has been action oft enough, ’tis true, but my greatest regret is born instead of inaction. I would see thee benefit from mine own experience and succumb not to the same pitfall.”  
“It’s alright that you still miss her,” Shasi said softly.  
“Thou awaitest a perfect opportunity, but it will not come,” Urianger said, his voice just as hushed. “There exist no perfect moments—only moments. Demur not overlong waiting for a better opportunity, lest thou findest thyself at the end of them, and thine hopes turned to ash.”  
“But what if …”  
“Thou’rt different?” he asked, and there was a note of humor in his tone. “When thou put that question to me moons ago I told thee that thou wert yet the same, for I thought ’twould be a comfort to thee. Thou _art_ different,” he said. “Master Thancred is different also. So too am I; that is the nature of living and the doom of the Ascian utopia both.”  
“I’m not certain that’s the comfort you think,” she sighed, unplugging the valve and hugging the ball to herself to deflate it.  
“Thou art not _so_ different, nor is he so much changed by his ordeal that you should not recognize one another.”  
“You’re so sure, are you?” Shasi asked, pushing herself to her feet.  
“There are few certitudes in life,” Urianger said. “But thine happiness is worth the risk.”

She slipped her sandals on, and scuffled back toward her belongings. “Time’s up,” she said.  
“’Tis past time,” Urianger agreed, and he touched her shoulder on his way out.


End file.
